With the growth of the internet, online shopping is becoming rapidly widespread.
Ordinary online shopping is conducted in a way that a user becomes the user of a system in advance, logs in a web page selling products, etc. by using a predetermined terminal after the user registration, selects a product in the web page, and inputs payment settlement information.
In such online shopping utilizing the internet, there is known a technique for storing purchase log information regarding products bought by a user in the past and information regarding the user in association, and enabling the user to utilize the purchase log information when the user accesses a shopping site (for example, see Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 11-232326, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2000-306007, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2001-22831, and Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2001-134648).
On the other hand, a business organization such as a corporation, etc. has many group members group by group (for example, section, division, etc.), and generally one group member purchases an article for the use in the group to which the member belongs. Here, in a case where a plurality of group members in the same group order the same article, the order is duplicate and the purchased article might be wasteful.
The above-described prior art is for enabling an individual to utilize the purchase log of his/her own, and no consideration is given to application of this art to purchase of articles group by group in a corporation, etc. and management of the articles. That is, the above-described prior art has a drawback that purchase log of each group member can be utilized but this does not facilitate efficient utilization of online shopping by the group.